In which Robert makes amends for his past sins by sacrificing himself to the devil Hardman, Samantha flashes back to the time she was mugged, and in the process of almost losing his license, Harvey finds his true love.
It’s the season finale, of the penultimate season yet, so the episode pacing is stepped up some. But we still get grainy flashbacks, cuz this is Suits, y’all.
Back story first: 8 years ago, Samantha and Robert are working at Rand Kaldor Zane or whatever that firm was called. Samantha is walking along Adelaide West or King Street in Toronto – standing in for New York’s Sixth Avenue, I assume – talking on her phone to Robert, who’s in the office, about a case they just won and how he’s eating some fattening Chinese food she left behind, when she is mugged. She tries to fight back and yells at Robert to call 911. The mugger kicks her and drags her on the ground when she doesn’t immediately give up her purse, and destroys her phone.
Afterwards, Robert visits Samantha in the hospital emergency room. She wants a hired investigator to find the mugger so she can wreak vengeance. Robert just wants justice. There is no evidence/case against the mugger, which angers Samantha because if the guy is not caught and convicted, she will be forever branded a victim, something she is over with, after her rocky childhood. Robert pins something damning on the mugger for Samantha’s sake. The mugger goes to prison, only to be murdered there. Ever since, Robert has felt guilt-ridden and responsible for the guy’s death.
In the present, Hardman is still representing the Simon mall developer executive who is suing Harvey for breaking attorney-client partnership privilege in relation to the whole Donna-Thomas Kessler mess from last week.
Harvey shouldn’t have told Donna what was going on with the mall deal, Donna shouldn’t have told Thomas, and Thomas shouldn’t have brought the ethical violations into the open by prematurely issuing a press release about the deal. So they’re all wrong, but it’s possible Donna made the biggest mistake, out of good intentions.
All hands are on deck to fix this thing. Harvey and Louis try and fail to make a deal with Hardman and Simon. Robert, who is friendly with Hardman, suggests he take a name partnership at Kaldor Zane in exchange for dropping the suit, but no one wants that, especially KZ. Hardman floats the idea of replacing Harvey’s name on the wall at Specter, Litt, etc., with his own, but no one wants that either.
Harvey and Louis meet with the chairman of the Board at the mall developer company, and convince her to fire Simon (and Hardman as his lawyer) but the foxy duo have already arranged a law society ethics hearing for the next day that could result in Harvey losing his license, so Harvey is in big trouble unless he throws Donna under the bus.
Robert, meanwhile, is newly remorseful about the mugger’s death, after what happened with Louis and his mugger last week. He asks Alex (who was mightily compromised with the prison case from Season 7) how he lives with knowing he’s done bad things that hurt/kill people. Alex advises him to either take action to assuage his guilt or move on.
With all the involved parties called upon to testify at the ethics committee hearing, Harvey asks Thomas to lie about hearing the confidential information about the deal from Donna. Not to protect Harvey, but to protect Donna. Thomas realizes that not only is he taller, bigger and more ethically principled than Harvey, but he knows a lovesick tragic hero when he sees one, and Harvey is in love with his girl.
New-fount-of-wisdom Alex tells Donna he knows she loves Harvey. When Thomas asks Donna what’s the story with her and Harvey, she admits she can never let him go.
At the hearing, our guys, with the support of Kessler, tell a complicated tale that lays all the blame for the breaking of privilege on Robert, who promptly loses his license and announces his retirement. This sacrifice was Robert’s idea, of course, his way of atoning for the mugger’s death, and thereby sparing the rest of the gang, and allowing them to keep doing unethical shit for a bit longer.
After this bittersweet victory, Harvey offers to take Robert out for a burger, but Robert wants to go home to the woman he loves. Same for Alex. Sam is the most hard hit by Robert’s departure – she’s lost her mentor. When she refers to having lost someone (Robert) who loved her, Harvey realizes he must seek out the woman he loves. He goes to Donna’s apartment, knocks on her door and they kiss, which turns into an awkwardly staged makeout session. After all these years, I’m not against these two beautiful people enacting a Darvey consummation, but something about the sight of Harvey’s suited butt grinding against Donna’s lower body in her satin lounge wear was off-putting. Just me?
Spoilers about next season indicate Harvey and Donna are going to have an actual relationship, making complete Sarah Rafferty’s ascension to official co-lead of the show with Gabriel Macht (bye-bye Patrick J!). Have we seen the last of Robert, though? Will my new favorite character Brian return? How about Mike and Rachel? Okay, Duchess Meghan is never coming back, but Mike? To find out, tune in for the final season of Suits this summer. We’ve come this far, might as well watch and snark to the end.
Kim Moritsugu is a Toronto novelist and sometime TV show recapper. Her latest novel The Showrunner, available from your favourite bookseller, is a darkly humourous, suspenseful Hollywood-noir about female ambition inside the TV biz that has been called a “sophisticated, compelling, and surprisingly complex drama,” and has been optioned for development as a TV series.
Check out its book trailer here:
The Hungry Novelist 
Thanks for this great recap! It really helped (one shouldn’t need reading up to understand the episodes of a show, but heck, I enjoy it anyway)!